Seventh poultry worker in Colorado with bird flu

An additional worker became infected with the H5N1 avian flu virus while culling sick hens at a Colorado egg farm, say state public health officials, raising the U.S. total of infected workers to 11, all with mild symptoms. Eight of the cases, seven involving poultry and one involving dairy, have occurred in Colorado.

The Centers for Disease Control says the risk to the general public from the disease is low. It recommends using protective equipment, such as goggles, masks, and gloves, by people in contact with infected or possibly infected animals.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said six workers, one more than reported earlier, contracted bird flu while killing and disposing of H5N1-infected hens on a poultry farm in Weld County, northeast of Boulder. “The workers … had mild symptoms, including conjunctivitis [pink eye] and common respiratory infection symptoms. None were hospitalized,” the agency said.

In addition, a Colorado dairy farmworker contracted bird flu in early July; and in 2022 a correctional inmate participating in a pre-release program was infected with the virus. Since April, three other dairy farmworkers, in Michigan and Texas, have been diagnosed with bird flu.

Some 100.4 million birds in domestic flocks, mostly egg-laying hens and turkeys being raised for meat, have died of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) since the disease appeared in the United States in February 2022, says a USDA database. That’s twice as many as in an HPAI outbreak in 2014–15 that was described as the greatest animal disease event in U.S. history.

Since late March, the virus has been confirmed in 163 dairy herds in 13 states from Idaho to Michigan. Colorado has the most, 42 herds, followed by 30 in Idaho, and 26 in Michigan.